Blogs

During the ESPN broadcast of Friday's Bulls-Mavericks game in Dallas, analyst Jeff Van Gundy blasted Bulls management and stood up for coach Tom Thibodeau.

Van Gundy is entitled to his opinion, but he obviously has a bias. Thibodeau was an assistant coach for Van Gundy in both New York and Houston. The two remain close friends.

Van Gundy was referring to a claim that Thibodeau had lost his team and was on the "hot seat," which usually means he's in danger of being fired. As far as I know, the only media member to suggest the hot seat theory in writing was Chris Sheridan of Sheridanhoops.com, a national NBA site. Van Gundy seems to believe Bulls management promoted this idea behind the scenes, but let's let JVG speak for himself.

That USA-Spain gold medal game everyone assumed would cap off the FIBA World Cup? Well, it won't happen.

Spain was upset by France 65-52 in Wednesday's quarterfinal round. With the host team eliminated from medal contention, the final four is set: USA vs. Lithuania on Thursday and France vs. Serbia on Friday.

Defense carried France to the surprising victory, outscoring Spain 23-9 in the fourth quarter. Boris Diaw led France with 15 points, followed by guard Thomas Heurtel with 13. France does not have Tony Parker or Joakim Noah at this tournament, but still has a fair amount of NBA talent with Portland's Nicholas Batum, Denver guard Evan Fournier, Utah center Rudy Gobert and ex-NBA forward Mickael Gelabale.

The strange NBA story of the weekend had its roots in a poorly-worded scouting report on free-agent target Luol Deng, according to espn.com.

Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson self-reported a racially-insensitive e-mail he wrote a few years ago, which was made public on Sunday. The subject of the e-mail was his thoughts on how to attract more affluent customers to Hawks games, which is essentially what the NBA is all about these days with its outrageous ticket and concession prices.

We have a few leftover items from last night's Kyle Hendricks show and some notes leading into tonight's game against the Brewers at Wrigley Field. Hendricks, with the help of two relievers, beat the Brewers 3-0. By working 7.1 innings and giving up 6 hits and no runs, Hendricks turned in his fifth straight quality start. Hendricks has put together 4 starts of at least 7 innings and 2 or fewer earned runs within his first 6 career starts. He became the first Cub to do that since Frank Castillo in 1991.

As you know, Hendricks is a Dartmouth graduate and a bright kid. Sometimes you'll hear the term “over-thinking” it in baseball (and in life). Cubs manager Rick Renteria said he doesn't worry about that with Hendricks.

OK, it's 2:05 a.m. and I'm typing at Wrigley Field. We'll get up later and flesh it all out, but the Cubs just beat the Rockies 4-3 in 16 innings for the longest game in Cubs history in terms of time. The game took 6 hours and 27 minutes to play. The winning run scored when Starlin Castro drove in John Baker on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly.

The winning pitcher was Baker, a backup catcher who worked the top of the 16th inning because the bullpen was taxed to begin with. Baker joked that he had to shake off fellow catcher Welington Castillo because they weren't on the same page.

Derrick Rose took to the court in Las Vegas on Monday as Team USA opened training camp in preparation for the FIBA World Cup next month.

The NBA sent out a couple of video clips from practice. One featured Rose dunking with two hands on an inbounds play and the other saw the Bulls guard scoring on a drive to the basket while getting fouled.

"The strength in his leg is great. His explosion is back. That’s all there,” said Bulls coach Tim Thibodeau, an assistant to Mike Krzyzewski on the Team USA coaching staff.

The Cubs today managed to get something for second baseman Darwin Barney, whom they designated for assignment on July 22. They traded Barney and a cash consideration to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a player to be named later. Barney, who won the Gold Glove in 2012, had a hitting line of .230/.265/.328 with the Cubs.

The emergence of Arismendy Alcantara and the activation of Emilio Bonifacio off the disabled list led to Barney being squeezed out, as did Barney's poor offense.